Is human need possibly best candidate?

[The Voice of Time]

Is it possible that human needs could be the most important and most valuable object of interest in the question of what is the right course of action?

[prof]

Why not base ethics upon human needs?

This task has already been accomplished to the satisfaction of many critics in the chapter entitled “Human Nature: Its Cause and Effect”, which is Chapter 4, pp. 101-123, in the book by Marvin C. Katz – SCIENCES OF MAN AND SOCIAL ETHICS (Boston: Branden Press, 1969). Here is a link to it:
http://www.amazon.com/Sciences-Man-Soci ... ial+ethics

The model there employs Formal Axiology as well as Maslow’s Theory of Human Needs, integrates them into a unified paradigm, offers copious evidence as to the existence of each need mentioned, and concludes that needs (or states of deprivation the satiation of which are reeinforcing – to use behaviorist terminology) form into a hierarchy and some of them are prepotent over others. Deprivation of earlier needs account for the various human compulsions, pathologies, neuroses and deviancies.

The most basic need is a need for meaning, a need for things to make sense. The highest need analyzed is a need for self-actualization.


It turns out that needs are values. What we value we call our desires, preferences, likes, leanings, tastes.

What we value strongly we call our needs, or our loves.

This definition of the concept "needs" is not in the book, but I have conceived of this idea - and offer it to the readers here - since writing that book, which is now rare. Only three copies of it are still available, though 100,000 copies were originally printed by the publisher.

[The Voice of Time]

(or states of deprivation the satiation of which are reeinforcing – to use behaviorist terminology).

What does the end there, "reinforcing", mean? What is reinforced?

[The Voice of Time]

I think human needs must gain some form of atomic physical nature to be truly testable and subject to scientific advancement, as human ethology or cultural studies are biased towards how things are at any given moment, it quickly can suffer from s self-closing mechanism (as opposed to societies that are open to failure, self-closing takes the means of society to close itself away from failure to satisfy the needs) for society around opinionated target goals.

The reason I say suffer is because of the opinionizing which causes us to paint anything outside of opinion as dissatisfactory, or halting progress to satisfy the determined target for what is human needs, however, opinion is based upon current experience, and therefore doesn't take into consideration that you can change the game entirely by letting some needs fail to deliver (like if you are a drug addict and consider drugs a need, which they are in a sense, you wouldn't be able to consider what possibilities can arise from letting your need for drugs whither, and instead your constant physical pain would reinforce your belief in needing them, this however shouldn't be seen as questioning only things society dislikes, but also already enjoys and which it might hold on tight to keep without effort to reconsider itself fully and what benefits might or might not appear from changing the game entirely, like traditional marriage or alcohol consumption or left-hand driving, the bias of habit keeps us tightly holding on to it).

If human needs was based on something more physically fundamental you could have a stronger base and more accurate base for knowledge about what is human needs and what is not and how it all works, and you would be able to calculate and figure out the path and costs of moving from one set of needs to another and the benefits and the downsides of it. Like the benefits of short term stability or the benefits of long-term overall empowerment to stay and ensure your stability and harmonious life.

[prof]

(or states of deprivation the satiation of which are reeinforcing – to use behaviorist terminology).

What does the end there, "reinforcing", mean? What is reinforced?

Behavior - and motivation - are what are reinforced. B. F. Skinner wrote extensively on Schedules of Reinforcement.

Some reminiscences: Once Fred Skinner showed me through his lab in the basement of William James Hall on the Harvard University campus. I saw the pigeons being trained; they pecked at colored spots of light. On another occasion, in his office, he gave me permission to reproduce in an anthology one of his papers, on the topic of the design of a culture. He had a vision that his techniques - yet to be tried - could help control over-population, over-eating, and violence.

I do not endorse behavioral engineering. Some of the practitioners of it that I have met were corrupt and used it toward their own selfish ends.

[The Voice of Time]

Well the primary problem with behaviourism for my part is that it doesn't say anything of what it means to be human feeling and thinking and enjoying life, it's cold and methodological, anti-humane in a way, perverse in the sense it seeks only to send animals and humans into submission, instead of sharing in their mutual humanity and try to seek acknowledgement.

[prof]

Well the primary problem with behaviourism for my part is that it doesn't say anything of what it means to be human feeling and thinking and enjoying life, it's cold and methodological, anti-humane in a way, perverse in the sense it seeks only to send animals and humans into submission, instead of sharing in their mutual humanity and try to seek acknowledgement.

I agree.

You know, VOT, you are rather bright for a 21-year-old highschooler. You could hold your own with thinkers of any age. You are a credit to Oslo.

Behaviorists, though, would deny that they "seek to send humans (or any other organisms) into submission." If a teacher attempts to shape up a class using behavioral techniques, if the students are aware, and catch on to what the teacher is doing, they can resist the conditioning - and even turn it around and use it on the teacher to condition him or her.

[The Voice of Time]

I agree.

You know, VOT, you are rather bright for a 21-year-old highschooler. You could hold your own with thinkers of any age. You are a credit to Oslo.

Behaviorists, though, would deny that they "seek to send humans (or any other organisms) into submission." If a teacher attempts to shape up a class using behavioral techniques, if the students are aware, and catch on to what the teacher is doing, they can resist the conditioning - and even turn it around and use it on the teacher to condition him or her.

Not necessarily. Because when you deprive a human being of a good, you are destabilizing their emotional and psychological and biochemical (neurological/endocrinological) selves, and the such-called "conditioning", which any way you look at it is just another word for submission only with the free flow of mastership (anyone can control the whip, so to speak, it's the whip that matters for the submitting part and not the master per se), is a consequence of people and animals experiencing some form or degree of despair and trying to repair/regain their emotional, psychological and biochemical selves. In the harshest sense it's exploitation of helplessness, the "deterrence" argument, that you can (presumably) do to others what they do to you, is like saying it's okay to beat somebody because they can (try) to beat you back. Only ethical way to use behaviouristic methodology is on impersonal objects or things that doesn't matter to people, like parts of the human body that is not important for human identity, emotion or psyche in general, or only causes trivial amounts of pain or discomfort (not important for well-being at any level for the individual in the aftermath of the experiment).

Btw, I don't like Oslo (too Urban and a centre for what amounts of crime and snobbery Norway has) so I'd prefer to be a credit to my hometown of Gjøvik (which, I must say due to my my compulsion to mention local facts, is one of the three Olympic towns of the 1994 Norwegian Winter Olympics, priding itself with the world's biggest publicly accessible cavern hall, a tribute to Norwegian folklore of troll kings inside mountains, and Skibladner, which is "the world's oldest paddle steamer still in timetabled service", called "the swan of Mjøsa", Norway's biggest lake, not that anybody cares about a boat).

[Impenitent]

"we" need...

be a good citizen, it's double plus good.

or not

-Imp

[Briancrc]

Well the primary problem with behaviourism for my part is that it doesn't say anything of what it means to be human feeling and thinking and enjoying life, it's cold and methodological, anti-humane in a way, perverse in the sense it seeks only to send animals and humans into submission, instead of sharing in their mutual humanity and try to seek acknowledgement.

What is the evidence of anything you wrote?

[Briancrc]

(or states of deprivation the satiation of which are reeinforcing – to use behaviorist terminology).

What does the end there, "reinforcing", mean? What is reinforced?

Behavior - and motivation - are what are reinforced. B. F. Skinner wrote extensively on Schedules of Reinforcement.

Some reminiscences: Once Fred Skinner showed me through his lab in the basement of William James Hall on the Harvard University campus. I saw the pigeons being trained; they pecked at colored spots of light. On another occasion, in his office, he gave me permission to reproduce in an anthology one of his papers, on the topic of the design of a culture. He had a vision that his techniques - yet to be tried - could help control over-population, over-eating, and violence.

I do not endorse behavioral engineering. Some of the practitioners of it that I have met were corrupt and used it toward their own selfish ends.

Reinforced behavior means strengthened behavior. Strengthened behavior means behavior that has increased in frequency.
As far as not endorsing something because you think you have met a person that did something with it that was selfish should leave you failing to endorse just about anything.

[prof]

Greetings, Briancrc

Have you ever employed behavioral engineering to control over-eating and/or violence? If so, how did it work out?

Did you ever manage a token economy? By this I mean, did you ever give or withhold tokens (and time-outs) from young kids as a way of reducing anti-social tendencies or wildness?

Did you ever witness behaviorism being used to gain an ethically-desirable goal or end?

Was the project a long-range success?

[Dalek Prime]

I think we are talking in terms of negative utilitarianism, which I totally can get behind, basing much of my personal philosophy on it.

[prof]

Yes, let us, as a priority - while avoiding the extremes of cynicism and utopianism - do all we can possibly do to reduce misery and suffering due to destitution and stark poverty - before we seek to increase the happiness of billionaires. I agree with Karl Popper on this analysis.

Let's use both gradual small measures and massive global measures to achieve this aim.

Let us also - if we are to be Ethical - observe the Inclusivity Principle (which I explain and justify in my papers BASIC ETHICS - http://tinyurl.com/mfcgzfz
and ETHICS FOR THE 21st CENTURY - http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/ET ... ENTURY.pdf
as we recall the words of one who knew his ethics well, the words of Albert Einstein:

"Human beings are a part of the whole called by us the" Universe," a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to the affection of a few persons nearest us. our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all ... and [appreciate] the whole of nature in its beauty.

[Briancrc]

Greetings, Briancrc

Have you ever employed behavioral engineering to control over-eating and/or violence? If so, how did it work out?

Did you ever manage a token economy? By this I mean, did you ever give or withhold tokens (and time-outs) from young kids as a way of reducing anti-social tendencies or wildness?

Did you ever witness behaviorism being used to gain an ethically-desirable goal or end?

Was the project a long-range success?

People in all walks of life have been helped with techniques from the field. The field has been endorsed as a scientifically proven approach for treating a variety of disorders by the following:

American Academy of Neurology
American Academy of Family Pediatrics
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Occupational Therapy Association
American Psychological Association
American Speech-Language Hearing Association
Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics
Autism Society of America
National Institute of Child Health & Human Development
National Institute of Mental Health

However, you assert that it is inhumane (anti-humane as you put it). As evidenced by what?